Grease back your hair, grab your poodle skirt and dancin shoes for the Fair Oaks Youth Advisory Board's Father Daughter Dance. Refreshments, great music, and more! Professional pictures will be available for purchase at an additional fee. Get your tickets in advance at the Fair Oaks Recreation and Park District office (4150 Temescal St., Fair Oaks, CA 95628). $25 per couple/ $5 each additional daughter. No "at the door" ticket sales.

Enough about turkey and all the trimmings, it’s time to talk about beef!

At the next “Live With the Chef” cooking class at Arden Hills on Wednesday evening, December 17, MS Nutritionist Irene Rolsch and Wellness Chef Lothar Wakefield team up to share handling and cooking tips plus nutritional information about filet of beef. This special monthly cooking class is focused on incorporating fresh ingredients designed for a healthy and well balanced diet. You're invited to join this ongoing adult cooking series - couples are welcome, too! Due to the popularity of this class, space is limited and reservations are required.

Let history make you happy! The Sacramento Children’s Museum is offering a special adults-only “History Happy Hour” on Wednesday, December 17 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Interested Museum guests will enjoy wine, beer, coffee, bottled water and light snacks in a pub-like setting while participating in a history-related trivia game that will include fun prizes for the winners. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour the Children’s Museum.

To help get Fort visitors in a festive holiday spirit, Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park (SHP) will present an interactive and fun “Hands on History: A Simple Emigrant Christmas” event on Saturday, December 13.

In John Sutter’s day, people from around the world passed through the gates of Sutter’s Fort, each with their own customs and traditions for the holiday season. On this special day in December, friends and families are encouraged to visit the Fort to step back in time to holidays past and enjoy docents in period attire as they interpret and demonstrate a variety of early holiday traditions and cultural activities similar to what early emigrants did in the 1840s. Entertaining vignettes will be set up that showcase a few of the diverse holiday scenes that will include food, music, decorations and other holiday traditions.

Imagine. Explore. Discover. In addition to its fascinating Gold Rush past, the Sacramento area is rich with an amazing array of state-of-the-art museums and historic sites that offer visitors the chance to explore California’s fine art, history, science, and wildlife treasures all year long. In December, many of the 30 members of Sacramento Association of Museums (SAM) are featuring a number of holiday-related events and activities, a few of which include the following: